


Ua Lilo I Ko Aloha (Has Become the Love)

by delighted



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 05:49:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10633545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/pseuds/delighted
Summary: Steve finally gets Danny in his bed... but he’s kind of quick to get out of it... to watch the sunrise?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a song by Pali, translation via Google, so if it’s not accurate... well, maybe don’t tell me, because I kind of love it. Anyhow, I was up before the sun, as I so often am, and listening to Hawaiian music, as I so often am, and feeling in need of some comfort fluff (yes, yes, as I so often am). So, this happened.

When Steve wakes in the palest dawn, the first thing he notices, without even needing to check, is that Danny isn’t in bed next to him. Swallowing his anxiety at that— _great, he finally gets Danny in his bed, and the very first morning he’s already running_ —he gets slowly out of bed, pulls on his shorts, and goes to look for the man who is evidently not planning on suddenly not driving him crazy just because they’re now sleeping together.

Fortunately, Steve isn’t surprised by the idea. He’s had plenty of time to get used to the prospect, as getting Danny in his bed hasn’t exactly been a quick and simple thing. And Steve harbored no delusions about it being easy going once he’d got him there. But he’d long since gotten to the place where _not_ having Danny in his bed was simply no longer an option.

Danny resisted at first. Of course he did—Danny always resists what he really wants. Except pizza.

Which is possibly how Steve finally won.

There are a lot of late nights with a job like theirs. And when it’s late at night (or, more accurately, early in the morning) and you’re filthy and exhausted and emotionally wrecked, you don’t always feel like cooking, and you don’t always feel like eating “healthy food,” not even if you’re Steve McGarrett.

They know the pizza delivery people by name.

A while back, Steve had made the mistake of allowing Danny to find out that sometimes he didn’t actually go home at night, but just slept on the sofa in his office. He didn’t think the slip was intentional, not at the time, but in retrospect it’s entirely possible that he knew Danny finding out would get him some of the nagging Danny attention that he had been missing. If that sounds weird, that Steve wanted Danny to nag him... well, let’s just chalk it up to the two of them being kind of perfect for each other.

Which is the thought that Steve has when he finds Danny.

“Hey, buddy, whatcha doin’ up so early, huh?”

Danny startles slightly, which makes Steve feel great. Just what you want in your long sought after lover the morning after you’ve finally coaxed him to your bed. Easily startled. Yeah. That bodes well.

Steve walks further out onto the lanai, towards where Danny’s dragged a chair right up to the railing, so that he can rest his feet on the edge. “Can I join you?” Steve asks softly.

When Danny turns to him, he’s smiling. Maybe it’s a slightly less happy smile than Steve would have liked, but it’s not the panicked expression he’d begun to fear. “Yeah, babe, of course.”

Grabbing another chair, Steve puts it close but not too close, just in case. “You okay?” He asks, hesitantly. He’s not really sure he wants to know if the answer is “no.”

Danny reaches out a hand and puts it on Steve’s arm. “I’ve always wondered what sunrise looked like from here.”

 _Okay... not where he’d imagined this going...._ “Uh, you have?”

“I think I’ve only seen sunrise over water during cases,” Danny continues, as though this has been a longstanding issue for him. “Usually either at the end of a horrific murder, or the beginning of one.”

Steve concedes this makes sense. Danny doesn’t usually enjoy getting out of bed early. Which is part of why his heart wasn’t exactly feeling soothed having found Danny not in bed before the sun was up. “I guess I never thought about that,” he admits. He’s seen more sunrises (and sunsets) over water than he could possibly count.

“Yeah,” Danny says, and the way he looks at Steve gives him the odd sensation that Danny’s imagined what that number might be for Steve. “Well, I thought it might be a nice way to start the day.”

He’s not really sure how to take that. He’d had quite another idea about how he wanted the day to begin, and it very much included Danny still being in his bed. But he knows things with Danny are not going to always go the way he might like. They never have, and that isn’t going to stop him wanting Danny anyway. So, he takes what he can. And sees if he can’t get a little more. “And is it? A nice way to start the day?”

Danny looks back out over the water. “Yeah, babe, it is.”

He doesn’t seem inclined to say more, so Steve sits back in his chair and kicks his own feet up on the railing, alongside Danny’s but not touching. He doesn’t want to presume. Danny moves one leg closer to Steve’s and reaches out with his toes, tickling the side of Steve’s foot. Relaxing at the contact, Steve falls back into his memories.

 

He’d stayed in the office late one night, after a case, after everyone had gone home. Danny had lingered a bit, hinted that Steve should really go home too, but when he’d sworn he would after “one more thing,” Danny had evidently given in and gone home. Only he hadn’t. Steve had been about to settle in with half a leftover sandwich from lunch interrupted the day before, a beer from his office fridge, and a pillow—which he hid during the day in his bottom desk drawer. He planned on watching a movie until he fell asleep. It was a bad habit, one he relied on maybe a little too often lately... when he just couldn’t face going home to an empty house.

He’d tossed the pillow on the sofa and opened the beer when he realized he was being watched. Turning around, he saw Danny standing at his door, holding a pizza box. Closing his eyes, Steve swallowed, gathered himself, and opened the door.

“Hey, buddy, I thought I told you to go home.”

“I could say the same,” Danny replied, in that slightly irritated, slightly resigned tone that he reserved especially for Steve (there’s a little hint about Steve’s affection for Danny’s nagging), and proceeded to move stuff aside on the desk to make room for the pizza, tossing a stack of paper napkins next to it before turning to Steve. “Got another pillow, or just the one?” And Steve knew then that Danny had guessed.

Steve opened the drawer and pulled out a blanket. “This do?” He asked.

Danny took the blanket, put it down like a pillow at the other arm of the sofa, kicked off his shoes, and sat. “You gonna offer me a beer?”

Steve wasn’t entirely sure what else to do at that point, so he did. Danny opened it, and took a drink, but didn’t say anything else. He was, Steve realized, waiting for him to offer an explanation. Not quite ready for that, Steve deflected by saying he’d been about to watch a movie.

“Alright,” Danny replied, setting his beer on the floor and gesturing for a piece of pizza.

Steve obliged, then pulled up the movie and pressed play, taking a slice for himself and settling on the sofa next to Danny.

They watched the movie, drank a few more beers, and finished the pizza without more than a few meaningless words, and nothing at all about why Steve had been sleeping in the office.

By the time the movie ended, they’d slid into their usual movie watching positions, which (perhaps somewhat embarrassingly for two grown, supposedly straight men) was bordering on what would be, by most people, called _cuddling_.

Steve felt like he couldn’t really avoid an explanation any longer. And they were both past the point, from beer and exhaustion, where driving home would be a viable option. “Danny, I—” he started, but Danny stopped him.

“Not tonight,” and he pulled the blanket up over them both. “Set an alarm, babe, god forbid the team found us like this, we’d never hear the end of it.”

And so they slept together on Steve’s sofa until just before sunrise, when Steve woke them up and they each drove home to shower and change.

 

“Want some coffee?” Danny asks, bringing Steve once more out of his reminiscence.

This amuses Steve to no end, because he’s assuming this is Danny’s way of asking Steve to go make some for him. Never, in the whole time they’ve been working together, has Steve known Danny to make coffee. For as reliant on the substance as the man is, one might think he’d have developed, somewhere along the line, the ability to concoct the beverage himself. But this is not something that has yet happened. Steve knows that Danny owns a coffee pot, even buys coffee. He knows this because Grace has offered him coffee in the mornings when he’s come to pick Danny up and the kids are there. Grace knows how to make coffee. Steve has begun to suspect that Charlie knows how to work the coffee machine as well. But on days when Danny picks Steve up in the morning, Steve knows that Danny will drink his first cup of coffee at his house. And on days that doesn’t happen, Danny’s first cup is at the office. Fortunately, Kono worked that out ages ago and the Five-0 office coffee is a league better than stereotypical police station coffee. (For a while before she worked it out, though, things were a little rough around the edges.)

All of which is a very long way to say that Steve is completely flummoxed when it turns out that Danny is offering to go downstairs all by himself and brew a pot of coffee.

“Don’t be a jerk, Steven, of course I know how to make coffee,” is his reply as he trots off downstairs to apparently perform a miracle.

Steve hesitates for about a minute before deciding that if he’s going to be sleeping with Danny he really needs to start trusting him to not burn down the house, so he stays put, but it takes a bit of focus and concentration and effort to allow himself to recall the second night they spent together.

 

It hadn’t even been a rough day. They’d had one straightforward case in the morning, then everyone had decided to take advantage of the less-than-usually-busy time to get some random things done: meeting with people, returning borrowed equipment, those kinds of things. Steve had been going over some old cases with Danny, kind of idly seeking connections they might have missed. It was something they tried to do every so often, but didn’t often find time for. Sometimes Steve wondered if it wasn’t in part because he knew that it was his tendency to get upset at things they’d not been able to solve, or when they’d been certain there was a connection but unable to prove it. Danny more than once had given him a lecture about how getting uptight about it didn’t actually help. So Steve maybe should have been prepared for Danny shoving Steve away from the stacks of files, forcing a beer into his hands, and pushing him down on the sofa. He’d been a bit stunned by it, though, so he might have come back with a joke about Danny having his way with him.

He’d been even more surprised when Danny’s response had been “After we eat.”

Assuming he was joking (and being more than a little agitated about it), Steve had been thrilled when, after they’d eaten their pizza and had several more beers, Danny in fact did push Steve back into the sofa and proceed to make out with him.

When it turned out that Danny’d requisitioned two camp beds to keep in the office “in case of emergencies,” Steve had only been able to shake his head. Setting up the beds in Danny’s office, and closing the blinds and locking the door, Danny’d mumbled “Still better set an alarm, babe,” before turning over and falling kind of shockingly quickly asleep, leaving Steve amused, puzzled, and more than a little sexually frustrated.

So much for them both being straight.

 

“Here you go, babe. Just the way you like it. Only without butter because that is disgusting.”

Steve smiles, accepts the cup, and is soothed when Danny sits back down only after moving his chair right up next to Steve’s.

“Thank you, Danny.”

Sliding his legs out and sticking his toes through the lanai railings, Danny slithers into weekend relaxed mode. It’s secretly Steve’s favorite version of his partner... _now lover_. He’s excited by the prospects. He imagines cooking for Danny on the beach, swimming at sunset, making out by a fire, staying out under the stars... but he knows those are Steve things. Danny things, he knows, are ordering take out and cuddling up on the sofa, watching cheesy movies and making snarky comments. And there’s room for both, of course. But Steve’s kind of hoping this weekend he gets some of the things on his list.

Steve takes a sip of the coffee and finds it’s actually good.

“Try not to look shocked,” Danny chuckles, obviously having noted the expression Steve couldn’t help.

“Well, you can make it from now on,” Steve chides.

“Mmmm. We’ll just have to see about that.”

 

It had been a while before the next time they wound up staying over in the office... and Danny had made no moves during that time. Steve almost had. He’d hinted something under his breath once or twice to Danny when they were all out, but got no reaction from Danny in front of the others. He’d almost given up anything ever happening again, when the two of them had been stuck at the office late at night watching the steady flow of intel over an incident they were keeping an eye on, in case it headed, as it seemed it would, to Hawaii.

Danny left Steve keeping watch while he went out to grab some food. When he came back, it wasn’t just with far too much Italian take out, but with a whole Italian themed set up—red and white checkered tablecloth, one of those candles in the red glass jars, and even a straw bottle of Chianti.

Steve must have been giving him a questioning look, because Danny shrugged. “I was feeling nostalgic, what can I say.”

They took a break from eagle-eyeing the intel, had an enjoyable meal, complete with flirting, and followed up by making out on the sofa, after which they caught up on what they’d missed, and then took turns in the night to watch and sleep on one of the camp beds.

Once more emboldened by the events of that night, Steve had tried getting Danny to react outside of the "in the office" scenario. Each time he’d been met with resistance. But bit by bit, he’d worn away at it. He got to the point that Danny would hold hands with him under the table, even when they were out with the team. Then, one night, they’d all gone out celebrating after a week of challenging cases when it had seemed like Friday would never come, and Danny had really let loose. Steve, watching Danny take on his fourth cocktail, held back, and therefore was fit to make sure Danny got safely home. Thinking he’d probably just drop him at the door, instead Danny dragged him inside, tugging on his shirt and saying “Stay with me tonight.”

As tempted as Steve had been by that, there was no earthly way he was allowing their first time to include either of them being drunk. But he stayed, and when Danny whined about needing pizza, Steve ordered one. He even gave in and ate it while sitting in bed with a freshly showered (god, that had been hard to not join in on) but still kind of drunk Danny. When Danny fell asleep, Steve cleaned up the pizza and went to sleep on the sofa.

The next morning, Steve was sitting in the kitchen over a cup of coffee when Danny stumbled blearily in.

Pouring himself a mug, he sat down across from Steve. “You really mean it, don’t you.”

“Mean what, Danno?” Steve was enjoying the somewhat worse-for-the-wear look Danny was sporting. It made his heart kind of go floomp.

“You let me eat pizza in bed.”

Steve grinned. “Is that your ultimate test or something?”

“Something like that.” And Danny didn’t speak again till he’d finished his first cup of coffee. “I’ve got the kids just for the day today. I’m taking them to the zoo. Which Grace is not pleased about, but Charlie is really excited for. Come with us?”

They went for pizza after, of course. Charlie was evidently almost entirely related to Danny and was currently in an “I only eat pepperoni pizza” phase.

After dropping the kids at home, Steve decided to be bold. “Come back to mine?” He’d asked, and Danny’d smiled and nodded. And that was how they wound up where they were now sitting, all of Sunday in front of them, and hopefully a lot longer as well.

 

“I wouldn’t mind an easy day,” Danny’s voice interrupts Steve’s thoughts about where he wants this to go. Setting down his empty coffee mug, Danny leans in to kiss Steve. “I want to watch the sunset from here, too.”

Trying not to hold his breath, Steve dares to hope. “What about sunrise tomorrow?” He asks.

“Yeah,” Danny smiles. “That too.”


End file.
